Damn, must be the Kaos Kurse, others have reported the same thing, but it always works for me. Of course, it is a resource hog and slows everything down so I don't usually have it active for long, just enough to take a few scaps and then putz around in paint.

A warning, this fort's gonna be excessively harsh on the eyes for some, what with it being Vanilla ASCII. It will also be rather sloppy, because I didn't do like I did in Riverrun and build a sprawling expanse, but crammed everything in a few Z-levels. Being more or less vanilla means I also had less cause for big, expansive wings branching off corridors and structures and whatnot.

A note in this last one, the tombs are directly under Nature's Cage (which I hope to make the cap from clear or crystal glass, as they use pearlash made from tree.)

The great gears of war turn, my friends. It's story time with Uncle Splint out of character.

In trying to aid the humans of The Furious Confederation, The Innocent Union, and Realm of Good, King Uvash Languagepage of the Abbey of Equity sent forth an expedition to found Battlejudge, deep in elven territory. In the year 540, the plan was put into motion, and the small outpost launched provocational raids against the elves of The Whimsical Sparkle and Jungles of Dangling. While few died, the dwarves caused a general raucous and stole a number of items, as well as leaving one civilian dead.

These elves, understandably, didn't like this. They were quite upset in fact.

The two queens convened and agreed to assault Battlejudge, as well as other outlaying hillocks and fortresses, and so what is now known as The Fierce Conflict and The Outrageous War began. However, in the east, the Sky of Harvesters mobilized as well, late that year, igniting The Crazed War that winter with an assault on the then-capital of Mansionsprinkle, though the first swing by the Sky of Harvesters landed at Bouldertaxed.

The elves lost. Badly. The leader of the assault and another elf would be taken prisoner, and the attack entirely beatn back. This would repeat itself at Shieldseed, with more prisoners taken by the dwarves. They'd only get one "win" at Hazyearth, shown at the bottom of the screenshot. And they even lost there despite having the upper hand on a tactical basis, with the leader being killed in a skirmish outside the hillock by a trio of dwarf militiaman.

The rest they were generally outwitted once the militias actually got their shit together and fought back, as shown below.

In some of these fights, it seems they retreated as soon as even slight resistance came up (particularly with the Violent and Searing Assaults, as well as The Assault of Blazes, where they seem to have retreated as soon as a stray bolt or a pothole full of sharp rocks came up. But then there's The Assaults of Savagery, which was the main strike.

Under the command of the Human Omo Lyricalwork, they marched through Amas' domain, and a combined force of humans and dwarves under the command of General Alath Deepwhips met them in battle. Despite the lopsided losses, it should be noted many of the dwarves and humans who died were untrained civilians, suggesting the attack began in some outlaying area before General Alath's men could respond. During the course of the battle, General Alath would be killed by the elf wrestler Coce Mirthvaulted in a lethal martial arts bout. This elf would die during a raid later that year against the humans on The Abbey's eastern border by another elf, a clerk in the employ of some hamlet.

In kind, the Dwarf Kivish Dutyiron would kill the elven company's commander.

Alath had also fought off The Assaults of Murdering which in hindsight had been a mere probing attack two months previously, in Opal of 540. Following his death, the greatest military mind in dwarven history would take the spotlight.

General Tirist Gatetargets

While she would hone her skills in very minor border raids launched by the Sweltering Saturnity (who were provoked into war by a raid from Battlejudge,) and Whimsical Sparkle, her true time would be two years after assuming command in 543, not long after King Uvash relocated to Battlejudge, when The Everlasting Tusks joined their cousins' war effort. After all, General Alath had been an inept rube who was dead by his second battle. Surely with their overwhelming numbers and fresh troops, they could run roughshod over the Abbey of Equity!

They couldn't.

Not only was General Tirist a deadly warrior in her own right by this point as you can see, she was a frighteningly lethal tactician. The Routed Sieges for example saw nearly 1000 elves, humans, and beasts pitted against a motley mix of 103 humans and dwarves and a smattering of human-raised elves. This was a constant thing, and it really sets the mood for the war now. Instead of a barely iterate rube leading the defense of the homeland, General Tirist is working these poor bastards over like an unruly gimp.

The Sweltering Saturnity's campaign actually halted that year, as in they stopped trying to attack anything, and everyone else just kept getting their teeth kicked in by Tirist's army in the past two years. She isn't making any offensive operations, but god damn is she scary.

Show here is also other battles. She apparently whipped the Sky of Harvesters so badly in 543 (despite the body count being fairly low,)that it'd take two years for them to take another swing at the Abbey on the field.

And as you can see here she's fast become one of the best tacticians in the damned world. The only ones better at war than her are the elven princesses who have been at war for almost 50 years. That's right kiddies, General Tirist is fast becoming as good a military strategist as people who have both been alive longer than her and been doing the whole "war" thing for far longer. Many of the nobility have also earned glory and proven themselves in the eyes of their subjects under the General. Some examples:

Baroness Cog Bridgedduty, The Dignified LordBaron Ushrir Inkedfaithful, The Time of HeavinessBaroness Vucar Tombweight, The Unions of ReiningBaroness Dumed Holdtomes, The Bodice of SorrowBaron Urdim Bootnight, The Azure Trust of ScrapesBaron Oddom Wheeledstirs, The Secretive Ocean of Spoils

This is setting a precedent for a warrior nobility, alongside Barons Morul and Adil, currently residing in Battlejudge (who have yet to earn their own titles, though they've taken part in numerous battles by now.)

It may also be very possible that General Tirist is beginning to be regarded as an avatar of Messog Takenbite, the Equitian goddess of War, Death, and Disease, back in the homeland.

Well, that concludes story time and a dive into legends mode since we started. It's basically an endless nightmare of war in the northern hemisphere, and while the humans are in downright terrible shape from decades of fighting, The Abbey of Equity is poised to demolish elven dominion over the northwest. It also seems that the elves literally cannot be bothered to bring their "A" game, sending woefully inexperienced general to lead their assault forces. If they keep doing that shit, eventually Tirist is just going to breeze by them in terms of raw skill in anti-elf tactics.

An actual update is coming soon, along with a portrait of General Tirist, as I went into adventure mode on the copy I used for the legends dive to see what she looked like.

Tidings were grim all around. With so much death and general unpleasantness from the battle, and previous news of war in the east, several were unhappy. Those who were, were taken off corpse hauling duty and given crafts to occupy them. But one human who had gone unnoticed, Anri the bard, lashed out in anger and frustration, fatally injuring the Predator Ezum pulleyvoices when he shoved him to the ground at the ramp into the main hall, and stomped on his throat, crushing it.

Baron Adil, professing previous military training, took the dead legendary marksman's place. The Judges in kind, were swift, merciless, and quickly beat and imprisoned the offending bard. And the baron wasn't the only one doing something of note. Two weeks later, a human arrived, looking to join the library: A master martial artist.

His skill, as some residents put it, as a "grandmaster elf puncher," made his entry into the fortress easy. But this aside, all that could be truly spoken of was construction on the Nature's Cage being slow going, mostly due to having nowhere to centralize construction. But then the winter came.

And elves followed with it. Infantry elves it seemed, but elves all the same, and history was proving even elves could get lucky.

Not that Maskwolf cared, seeing as the only soldier to face them (the rest in the fortress or working on the cage,) he deigned to headbutt the lead elf, yelling "HEADBUTT!" to his attacker's confusion before contact was made. The human nearby, who was dumping an armful of iguna scales and old nervous tissue, retreated at the hammerdwarf's order to fetch reinforcements. He alone would hold the line.

Three others stormed him, but it did little to frighten the hardened war dwarf - one found his shield arm crushed, another her foot mangled beyond recognition. Arrows flew past or bounced harmlessly off his mail. A quick jab, and an elf fell, unable to breath. When another leapt upon him? He scrambled to his feet and smashed her thighbone, causing her to pass out from the pain. A spearelf attempts to flank him? He bit down on his spear hand. They kept trying to surround him - and he simply kept snapping their limbs like the twigs they loved so much.

By the time reinforcements poured from the gate in the form of nearly the entirety of the Coalmakers, come to assist their brother in arms, they saw three elves dead already, some crawling away in panick, and others reaching up, groaning in elven for help or to be put out of their misery, with bone spurs poking through ripped flesh and blod smeared about the land. At least one elf's head was partially smashed in, and another's looked to have exploded on the paving stones. The last simply went down as they saw Maskwolf's greathammer connect, and simply not move afterwards.

But the tide would not abate yet. A shower of arrows came from the hillside above as the Coalmakers arrived in force, ready to finish off the piles of mangled elves Maskwolf had left them.

Kikrost, Ingiz, and Species made first contact, Species smashing in an elf's head at the same time as Maskwolf, who had gone into a mechanical motion, hammer coming up, and them coming crashing back down on the elves - their helmets offering just enough resistance to make their deaths slightly more drawn out. As the first group of elves were ground into a hideous bloody smear on the ground, Maskwolf, missing several teeth from a boot to the head and over-exerted pointed northwards.

"More of'em... Dozens..." He said between heaves.

His comrades turned, and readied themselves, marching forward with Nidor alternating between preaching about Messog Takenbite and loudly proclaiming the elves to be intruders into the domain of Amas.

They crashed into the wall of wood and flesh, horses and unicorns appearing amid the chaos. As hammer fell upon Skull, one thing stood out: "THE DANK PORTAL WILL DRINK YOUR BLOOD!"

And drink its blood it did, as to the Coalmakers' other weapons. At the end of the battle, no dwarf lay dead, but a count of 104 elves lay in a mangled and dismembered heap. There were injuries, but comparatively speaking? It was an abject slaughter, which was concluded with a name bestowed upon a morningstar as well.

The wounded reported to the hospital of course: Kikrost with a smashed nose and minor cuts on his neck and head, Vucar with bites consistent with a horse's teeth on his foot, Maskwolf of course minus four more teeth, but also bearing a cut where his helmet had dug into him courtesy of a spear haft, and Zas with a broken wrist. They were all in and out in just a few hours.

- - - - -

Construction continued throughout winter. It was slow and ponderous: Only one dwarf was trusted to fell trees, so dolomite was used instead of the originally planned featherwood floors, and windows were decided upon to allow light into the tower, allowing the tree to still thrive under the careful watch of the dwarven inhabitants. Little of note truly happened, beyond the goblin bard Ote starting a fight in the tavern, and just as before, Judge Ber was dispatched to dispense justice.

By knocking out several of his teeth and shattering both of his knees. "That'll learn ye." Is all the Judge said as she went back to hauling the truly monstrous amounts of items cluttering the fortress.

However, the winter would not pass entirely without incident. Chaffing under endless hauling work, Anri the bard finally snapped and attacked Zas in a rage - who was off duty and doing his regular job as abone carver. The fight was over quickly. He simply shoved Anri down with a stab and decapitated him, and quickly ordered the body to be carted away.

Following this, the goblin Ote petitioned for citizenship. "I been around longer than any a you stunties been alive. hell, been alive longer than a dozen of you put together. But you run a tight ship." High praise coming from a goblin. Especially one who had his legs broken by a Judge and witnessed the summary execution of a fellow bard by a soldier. And then there was the werewombat.

A child got involved in the fight, Rith, the son of the fortress' premier engineer Lokum. Iki used the brave son of Battlejudge as a distraction and though he now had a destroyed left eye and several other bite wounds, she struck the monster down with a solid thrust into its chest, sparing him from being torn to shreds. But then, Iki turned on the boy, intent on killing him when Iden stepped in and stopped her. The wild-eyed and panicked spearman told Iden the boy had to die thank to the numerous skin-tearing wound.

"Iki, if you kill the boy, you'll have to die too." He said, scooping the angry child up who threw a rock he had tried to beat the beast with at the mangled carcass.

"Why? I'm only doing my duty. That kid's infected!"

"So are you." The craftsdwarf said quietly, pointing to Iki's spear hand, and the blood dripping from it. It was a shallow wound, unnoticeable thanks to the adrenaline.

Iki simply slumped against the wall in the hospital in the wake of this, and only perked up at all when Colonel Vucar told her they'd just have to keep an eye on her, though the kid was clearly done for.

- - - - -

Spring arrived with the pain of the wombat, and the death of a 90 year old member of the fortress, a human woman by the name of Icar. Thankfully, she was carted off from the food stocks (her last act having been storing a huge pile of grizzley bear-based roasts.) But then Ustuth who tended to the burial, came running into the fortress shouting alarms: "THE FOREST HAS COME TO KILL US!"

The monster then proceeded to chase a wounded war dog, and then get itself trapped in the Nature Cage, the doors to which Baron Adil proceeded to lock behind it. They wouldn't have long, as it would easily topple the gold bars between the doors, but the troops acted quickly. The Predators would move in to provide support fire, just in case the monster had use of webs. Iki would face the monster alone.

"Death or Glory, Iki." The Colonel had said. She knew what he was hoping for.

So as the bars came down? She charged forward, ready to meet the beast.

After inflicting a few wounds though, the monster fell, unable apparently to defend itself!

Iki panicked at this point as the Predators approached waving and shouting congratulations for "Slaying the spirit of the forest itself." She simply yelled at them to get away as the sun began to set, and locked herself in one of the tombs. As the Colonel arrived on the scene, a terrible noise reverberated through the fortress from Rith's room, and from the tomb.

The Predators, who had been trying to get Iki to come out, took up positions and he put his hand on the door. As he threw it open, iki burst forth and leapt at a passing dog, being greeted by a stream of metal bolts! Iki was disarmed almost immediately as the Predators let fly, and Vucar dove on the beast, slashing away an arm and a foot as the beast savagely mauled the poor hound. A second salvo pinned her to the ground, and Vucar executed her, his crossguard and blade shearing off her head at the neck.

And she would not be the only one to die this night, as Vucar moved into the fortress with intent on putting down Rith as well. And he delivered on this, putting the infected boy down as the moon was giving way to the sun.

Thankfully, the rest of Spring seemed content to go by without further incident. Except for Tetha. Tetha decided to start a fist fight.

- - - - -

Summer comes, and the dwarf continue to work diligently. There was talk of a festivel time being planned for after the human caravan arrived and business was concluded, since many were unhappy due to not getting to spend time with friends and family (or make any of either.) However, summer had arrived, and that meant one thing: War.

Species had spotted them, but had ample time and distance to form up with the others. He reported what seemed to be a case of severe infighting among the elven warhost.

The dwarves advanced (alongside some off-duty fighters who were fetching things from the nearby pile of armor and clothing) up the hill, meeting a few forward elements and laid into the enemy's flank. Blood sprayed about as limbs were sever, throats slashed, and bones broken. This was the Royal Guard's first engagement, and they aquitted themselves well, killing elf and beast alike with the same viciousness as the Coalmakers whom they marched beside. But the enemy just kept coming, and coming, and coming... Some were overworked, and luck for the militia was bound to run out as Kivish Weaktrades, a macedwarf and cousin of Kaos, fell in the line of duty.

In response, Nidor bestowed a name upon his war axe, consecrating it in the name of Amas after the battle.

The after battle tally was conducted soon after by Duto, who based on Species' report, indicated some two dozen of the enemy died by their own cousins' blades and spears, while the rest died to dwarven metal. 132 elves died on that hill, irrespective of who killed them, and with the numerous beast, the count rose to 164. There were celebrations and congratulations all around of course, as there was weeping at the sheer mindless carnage of it all. The humans arrived around the time clean up nearly concluded, and they were mvarvled - and horrified - by the bin after bin of gear salvaged from some 200 elven soldiers.

They understandably didn't question or complain about this, especially when several bin were offered free of charge.

Kadol the bone carver did though. Not of the commerce, but of the general state of affairs. As did Kadol the Hunter. The former punched several dwarves in the library, while the latter toppled statues.

Dredd dispensed justice on Kadol the carver, while Judge Inod took care of the hunter, breaking multiple bones on the unfortunate but unruly dwarves. But it had to be done. There was also the dethroning of Nish from the position of mayor, but the militia corrected this error at swordpoint when they pointed out her wider range of conciliatory skills - and the fact that the usurper Nesak didn't have any friends in the fortress. The trends of beatings and upset dwarves, all while veteran warriors hogged the crafting workshops and made a mess for the common folk to clean up was starting to make some uneasy.

some even began to believe that the forest was making its displeasure known, as the tower continued to rise around the captive tree. Plummeting morale gave it some credence, though some said it was simply because of the mess the militia made, and the lack of time off for citizens to mingle and make friends, or lack of suitable work for them to do. Of a particular issue was Kadol the Bon Carver, who continued to be a problem after getting out of the hospital - only to subsequently be beaten and severely injured again by Judge Inod.

Things were otherwise quiet aside from Duto bestowing a name upon her sword, "The Confining Liberty."

As autumn came however, Kadol the hunter began to show just how much an an issue her "stress" was becoming. Talonis caught a book with his neck, and Kadol even flat out shot someone in the chest during her tantrum!

Judges Ber and Inod proceeded to beat the hunter, knocking out several teeth and destroying her trigger hand. "Not gonna do that again are ya?" Ber said after a final punch to the hunter's head. She didn't respond.

Nor was she breathing.

"Ah shite..."

- - - - -

The autumn was marked mostly by successful trade following kadol's official death announcement, and the birth of a baby girl!

When others questioned Maskwolf about his wife (as some found it odd he arrived without her,) he informed them of the reason. While traveling through goblin country (though in truth it had been under human dominion for 100 years,) she was over taken by a strange mood, and when the locals failed to provide the silver she wanted for her artifact, she went made with rage, forcing the local guards to imprison the frothing, feral she-dwarf. "It was.... Saddening. But in truth, not unexpected."

Meanwhile two problem citizens, Kadol the bone carver and Aspka the human bard, were drafted and once Kadol was out of his depression, were to be sent to Glacialspears. "They'll either win and burn the place down, or die. Win-win for us." Vucar had told the mayor and nobles.

Aspka returned alone not long after and reported Kadol being "Torn to fucking pieces" by the locals. He was sent out again when in the tavern he expressed continued stress from other unrelated events, and sat in a depressed heap for two days outside the fortress before heading off. She returned later from a more quiet task, and admitted to "running like a bitch" as Vucar worded the report when handing it in to Nish.

Soon after, she was rolled into the Plainswalkers, if only to give her a better outlet for pent-up aggression. As soon as the caravan left, the bulk of the population was also swiftly herded into the Merchant of Murders, where Nesik the goblin bard promptly started a fist fight while drunk, got beaten by Judge Ber (as the entire fortress guard was there,) and hospitalized. It was hoped that by locking most of the population into that damned tavern, at least a few friendships would form, and people would stop complaining about "being lonely."

"It'll either be that or they'll all kill eachother in a drunken orgy of madness, violence, and bad human music." Was one comment from the militia units that were training.

AND WE HAVE AN UPDATE! A good bit of time has passed in game, being nearly 546. We've also likely slain the very heart and spirit of the forest itself with the death of Dakslud.

Honestly aside from the attacks by the elves, very little of note happened. No "true" artifacts made (probably because of our prolific writers guild,) only one kid born, and some deliberately botched raids to try and get rid of a couple problem citizens, which natural selection sorted out. I think Aspka is salvagable.

One worrisome one is Maskwolf, who is getting pretty down. Not helped by the fact he doesn't get to spend time with his kids (as they're adults now, and one is even in the royal guard!) And his wife is in the loony bin up north - she apparently went berserk, but wasn't killed, when she failed a mood while residing in a human-controlled goblin site. The majority of folks are doing fine though.

This update also brings our death count to *over 20!* Woo! Normally it's not something to celebrate, but considering we had zombie mountain to deal with, and the sheer quantity of various bloodthristy animals brought along by the enemy, it's surprising it took this long, even if a chunk were due to accidents and old age.

I hope the update's not underwhelming guys. Will have a portrait of the good general later this week.